Is fear learned or instinct?

Question

I actually can't believe that I had to debate this. I know that fear is instinct, but this guy doesn't get it.

(The original post was a petition signed to get a rapist back in gaol after taping a 6 year old and only serving 6 months).

((Sorry for the long attachments. I am also not a psych major. I'm the green one btw.))

Answer

It's instinct to be afraid of some things. That's the whole "fight or flight" thing. But, some fears can be learned. Such as , you're natural afraid of scary situations, but you may learn to be afraid of a type of animal because your experience with one. It's both

Answer

I feel it's a bit of both, because fear is an instinct to help us identify what we believe is a threat, but we aren't born to be scared of things like spiders, so we learn about it. Some from being taught, and some from experience.

Answer

It could be one or another or even both....

Answer

The answer is both.

Answer

It depends what you mean my "fear." Fight/flight/freeze are natural instincts.

Answer

... I had to stop reading because of how idiotic that guy is

Answer

A persons mind blocking off painful memories isn't something that should have to happen, it's a coping mechanism used when something is too much too handle, and that's not necessarily a good thing, it's said to be more of a short term solution, and I've known many people including myself who've needed psychologists to help people successfully bring those things to surface and work through them so they aren't an even bigger issue later. Because even if she were to not think about it consciously, it would likely still hang around in her subconscious and result in like you said, many other issues regarding fears, self esteem, trust etc, even if she can't recall why.
Anyway, yes fears are instinctual, obviously there are many things that we learn to fear but fear itself isn't exactly something you can just teach someone. It either happens or it doesn't.

Answer

I would think they are learned just because everyone has different fears. If we all had the same fears, I would think they are instinctual.

Answer

I agree with Mary, it is both instinct and learned. The only true fear we have is that of mortal danger, the other fears are learned yet our fight or flight still comes into play. However what this guy said about forgetting stuff that happened when you were a kid… I'm not sure I'm correctly understanding the conversation, but as a victim of abuse at that age myself, I can say that I never forgot a thing about it and never told a soul about it in my childhood. And I was certainly not fine and sometimes I'm still not fine about it at age 40. I mean, to an outsider I would seem fine, but my inner world was a disastrous mess for a very long time.

Answer

It's both

Is fear learned or instinct?

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